Word: london
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...difficult to speak adequately or justly of London," wrote Henry James in 1881. "It is not a pleasant place; it is not agreeable, or cheerful, or easy, or exempt from reproach. It is only magnificent." Were he alive today, James, a connoisseur of cities, might easily say the same thing about New York or Paris or Tokyo, for the great city is one of the paradoxes of history. In countless different ways, it has almost always been an unpleasant, disagreeable, cheerless, uneasy and reproachful place; in the end, it can only be described as magnificent...
...wealthy elites, great cities do not always provide easy or gracious living; lesser communities are almost always more comfortable. Juvenal could have walked peacefully in any number of attractive provincial cities. The average resident of one of Britain's planned new towns lives better than his counterpart in London. Yet London, notes Robert Ardrey, author of The Territorial Imperative, was a great city "even when the food was terrible, and you couldn't get a hot bath." Stockholm, Geneva and Johannesburg, by contrast, are three of the most comfortable cities in the world, but not one of them...
...word that implies uniqueness. It is doubtful, too, that the world itself can contain more than half a dozen great cities at once. Indeed, a great city cannot exist in an unimportant country, which is why Urban Planner John Friedmann of U.C.L.A. prefers to call great cities "imperial cities." London and Paris are still great cities, but they lost some of their luster when world politics shifted to Washington, Moscow and Peking-all of which lack at least one ingredient of greatness. Washington may be the political center of the nation, but, except for its superb galleries, cultural life there...
Almost by definition, a city can be great only at the expense of other cities that are less than great. If the power, money and creativity that are now centered in London were divided with Birmingham, Birmingham would not become great, but London would be irretrievably lessened. A delight to live in and a joy to behold, Rome has certain qualities of greatness. It is redolent with tradition; it is the center of a universal religion; it has a people with character and a lively sense of politics. But it does not quite make the first rank of cities today...
...going to lie and say I was about to commit suicide. And I didn't have any record of mental illness. Besides, I heard that there was a chance that they might contact my parents, and I couldn't risk that. They didn't ask for parental consent in London, Just a letter from my doctor here...